08 April, 2007

As I wrote a few posts down, we'll have an open house in the new showroom on April 15th from 1pm to 6pm. The address is 214 West Street Annapolis MD 21401. We hope you'll drop by for a glass of wine, sake, or lemonade and Franco/Japanese snacks.

Ryan Watson sent the photo on the left. that's his Citroën 2CV and his bike (note the Ostrich bag). If you can't ride to our shop, this is a fine way to arrive.

Here are the directions:

From Washington DC and points South:Take I-495 to Route 50 East. Get off on Rowe Boulevard (exit 24) towards Annapolis (that's a right turn onto Rowe) Turn right at the second light onto Taylor Avenue. At the traffic circle go 3/4 way round and exit onto West Street (towards downtown) We are 2 blocks down on the left; look for the orange door.From Baltimore and points North or West:Take I-97 to Route 5o East. Get off on Rowe Boulevard (exit 24) towards Annapolis. Turn right at the second light onto Taylor Avenue. At the traffic circle go 3/4 way round and exit onto West Street (towards downtown) We are 2 blocks down on the left; look for the orange door.

From Southern Maryland:Take Route 2 into Annapolis. Turn Right on west Street. At the traffic circle go 1/2 way round and continue on West Street (towards downtown) We are 2 blocks down on the left; look for the orange door.

From the East:Cross the Bay Bridge. Get off on Rowe Boulevard (exit 24) towards Annapolis. Turn right at the second light onto Taylor Avenue. At the traffic circle go 3/4 way round and exit onto West Street (towards downtown). We are 2 blocks down on the left; look for the orange door.

Parking: On Sundays you can park on West street without paying the meters. Or park in the neighborhoods adjacent to West Street. There is also a city parking garage one block past Velo Orange on the right (turn right on Colonial) and another one a block before VO on Amos Garret St.

Other Activities:The Ride for Shelter takes place earlier on Sunday. It's a neat bike ride through the various parts of Annapolis to raise money for the local homeless shelter. There'll a swap meet from 8-11am. So bring all your old bikes and parts. This is the first time we've tried the swap so I'm not sure how well attended it'll be. There is no fee for the swap meet, but we ask you to donate a small percentage of your take to the shelter. There will be someone there to sell used bikes if you want to leave one and go on the ride.

You can easily walk to the harbor, state house, and historic district from the shop. There are plenty of nice restaurants and cafes just a few blocks away.

fastfifty,I was thinking of riding out, so I started to plot a route with Bikely. I haven't ridden it yet, and I really just followed the roads recommended by the area bike maps you can get from WABA. The link is:http://tinyurl.com/2vx2po

It doesn't have any cues, but eventually I will add some after I've ridden it a few times.

chuck said:I'm suggesting bikely.com or routeslip.com for a mapping routes to your shop. Both work great and are fun to use... even have elevation *grin*

And the good news - no, the GREAT NEWS - is that the hideous bug (residue from being hacked, I believe) that had afflicted routeslip.com for the past week, where it was impossible to become your own identity, and everyone was logging in as the same user ID, is FIXED AT LAST!

It looked pretty grim for a while, and I know quite a few users gave up and quit. Certainly, creating a route was out of the question.